The reading season

After the summer's whirl of activity, after the mountains have been hiked and the rivers have been run and the garden has been weeded for what we hope to God is the final round, it's a good time to kick back with a book. Fall invites a slower pace, gives us lazy afternoons by the woodstove to lose ourselves in words. This autumn's crop of great new reads includes offerings from much-loved authors, like T.C. Boyle Stories II, a wicked-funny story collection from the California master, and the latest from Ivan Doig, Sweet Thunder, about the further adventures of Morrie Morgan from The Whistling Season. For fans of now-deceased mystery writer Tony Hillerman, his daughter, Anne Hillerman, has written Spider Woman's Daughter, continuing the saga of Navajo sleuths Leaphorn and Chee. And lesser-known authors have produced some intriguing titles. In the novel In Calamity's Wake, Canadian writer Natalee Caple imagines Calamity Jane's abandoned daughter on a quest to find her notorious mother. Oregon author Don Waters' Sunland is an authentic and comical novel set in Tucson and the Sonoran Desert. From Chicano noir author Ito Romo comes The Border Is Burning, haunting stories that take place along the chaotic, often violent border between the U.S. and Mexico. Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere: A Memoir is itinerant writer Poe Ballantine's exploration of a murder in Nebraska and of his High Plains town. The endless wolf wars are chronicled by Aimee Lyn Eaton in Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country. We're proud to note new books by HCN contributors, too: Jared Farmer's Trees in Paradise: A California History, Kathie Durbin's posthumous Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge, and a memoir from Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West.

We're also keeping an eye out for some important works that won't be out till spring: The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, described as the "first complete and impartial biography" of the labor leader, by Miriam Pawel, and Poison Spring, an exposé of the Environmental Protection Agency by E.G. Vallianatos, a former agency insider.

Below are some of our top picks, listed alphabetically by author. If a book is currently available, no publication month is shown.

FICTION

Rain Dogs Baron R. Birtcher, The Permanent Press

T.C. Boyle Stories II T.C. Boyle, Viking Adult, October

In Calamity's Wake Natalee Caple, Bloomsbury, October

Return to Oakpine Ron Carlson, Viking

Killing Custer: A Wind River Mystery Margaret Coel, Berkley, September

Sweet Thunder Ivan Doig, Riverhead

The Best of McSweeney's Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Publishing, November

The Book of Jonah Joshua Max Feldman, Raincoast Books, February 2014

Kuessipan Naomi Fontaine, Arsenal Pulp Press, October

Spider Woman's Daughter Anne Hillerman, Harper, October

Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest D. Seth Horton, Brett Garcia Myhren, editors, University of New Mexico Press

The Shadows of Owls John Keeble, University of Washington Press, October

Where They Bury You Steven W. Kohlhagen, Sunstone Press

Desert Death-Song: A Collection of Western Stories Louis L'Amour, Skyhorse Publishing, October

The Thicket Joe R. Lansdale, Mulholland Books

Crow-Blue Adriana Lisboa, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, October

If I'd Known You Were Coming Kate Milliken, University of Iowa Press, November

Into the Night: Tales of Nocturnal Wildlife Expeditions Rick Adams, editor, University Press of Colorado, October

Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West Bryce Andrews, Simon & Schuster, Atria Books

Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere: A Memoir Poe Ballantine, Hawthorne Books

Rough Breaks: A Wyoming High Country Memoir Laurie Wagner Buyer, University of Oklahoma Press

Accomplishing NAGPRA: Perspectives on the Intent, Impact, and Future of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Sangita Chari, Jaime M.N. Lavallee, Oregon State University Press, November

Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge Kathie Durbin, Oregon State University Press, November

Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country Aimee Lyn Eaton, Oregon State University Press, October